


Sporting Behavior

by anticyclone



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/F, Fingering, Sword Fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 17:51:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17688059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: Imani has not had a great few months, since the war ended. Then one of her former soldiers gets herself into a scuffle with a feather-wearing professional duelist - and is far too drunk to fight. Imani steps up as proxy, and wrangles herself an interesting invitation out of it.





	Sporting Behavior

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gileonnen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/gifts).



The expression on the pretty noble’s pale face wavered when she realized Imani was the one answering the challenge.

Imani kept her own face as blank as possible, which was a struggle. She’d run out of patience around Ursa’s fourth drink and had already chewed her entire squad out on the walk here. How dare they get into a fight in a public place? How dare they all let Ursa, who could barely walk, accept a challenge from a professional duelist? What Ursa even been thinking in the first place, blundering into a table of noble ladies?

But there was nothing to be done about it now.

Imani clasped her hands behind her back and waited. She shouldn’t call the group her squad any longer. It had been four months since the end of the war. Since they’d all been decommissioned. (Since Ursa had started to drink.) There was no reason to hold herself, let alone any of her friends, to the military code of conduct.

Except … fighting? In public? And this pretty duelist might have been in a shimmering, silly peacock capelet, with actual absurd feathers in her curly hair, but she held herself like a woman who knew how to cut someone open. 

“I didn’t challenge you to a fight, ma’am,” the duelist said. Her voice was surprisingly deep. She had smoothed her face over. No longer unbecomingly ruffled. Instead, she looked sympathetic. As if there had been a mistake. “You did not insult my friend and I have no quarrel with you.”

“I do have a quarrel with you, madam."

The duelist let out a laugh. She tossed her curls over her shoulder. Behind the fountain in the center of the square, some others in fancy dress laughed too. “Howso? I don’t believe I even saw your face during our … disagreement.”

Imani slowly looked the woman over. She raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. Then Imani met her eyes and shrugged. “You took offense from someone clearly out of their own shoes in drink and incapable of walking straight, let alone defending themselves against physical harm.”

The smile froze on the duelist’s face.

“I can’t in good conscience allow my incapacitated friend to fight.” Imani inclined her head. “Ursa is exercising proxy.”

“Very well then.” The duelist pushed back her capelet and placed her hand on her sword. It was finer than Imani’s, but probably no sharper. “May I at least have your name?”

“Imani dra Vern.”

“Seraphina Val-adra.”

Fantastic, Imani thought. Ursa had found herself a scion of the city’s founding family. Someone with money, and connections, who was likely trained in the art of dueling since she'd been old enough to hold a blade. Planting her feet, she drew her sword. Val-adra's eyes lit up as she gave the sword the same look Imani had given her.

They both raised their blades. Conversation at the edges of the square died. For a moment, all Imani could hear was the water siphoning through the fountain.

Then Val-adra lunged and all Imani heard was the sound of her pulse in her ears.

Metal crashed against metal. Val-adra's expression flickered, surprised, as Imani put all her strength into pushing the woman several steps backwards. The effort was a strain, but when Val-adra slipped to the side and Imani whirled to face her, the anxious sound of her pulse had fallen and left her with only the sweet feeling of blood racing through her veins. It had been months since she'd really fought.

Val-adra darted forward. Imani danced back. They wove a circle around the fountain. Ursa was a pale shape across the flagstones, flanked by silent friends holding her up. When Val-adra's blade cut a hole in Imani's sleeve, the pretty nobles cheered. Imani snorted and brought her elbow up to clip Val-adra's arm, sending her spinning to the side.

"That's hardly sporting!"

Imani briefly raised her arm and her cut sleeve. "You didn't even draw blood."

Val-adra grinned. "Is that what we're fighting to?"

"If that will bring you satisfaction," Imani drawled. It was hard to banter when her whole body was pulsing in time with her heart. Val-adra was fast, and she had to keep moving, or she'd risk being driven back against a wall. That was one thing she wasn't sure she could come back from.

"Blood isn't terribly satisfying," she said, winking. "But if you insist." Val-adra feinted and forced Imani to drop and kick to avoid being struck. Her foot landed just below Val-adra's knee. She winced and swung down, but Imani had already moved. "All of you little soldiers fight so rough."

This needed to end. It was far too much talking for a fight. And the longer Imani fought, the more she gave away about her technique. Val-adra had clearly fought soldiers before - and Imani had rarely had occasion to fight nobles.

"Don't think you can keep up?" Her back was to the fountain, now. That was better than a wall. That she could work with.

"Ha! Try me." Val-adra leapt forward.

It would have been a killer move if Imani hadn't dropped and shoved her shoulder directly into Val-adra's gut. She let out a pained oof and tumbled over Imani's back, her free hand scrabbling for purchase in Imani's shirt.

There was a splash and a cry of alarm from the nobles. Imani almost had time to smile before she realized Val-adra hadn't let go of her shirt. Then her boots lost purchase on the stones and cold water closed over her face.

When she came up for air Ursa and their friends were gone. A city watchman was hauling Val-adra out of the fountain.

Ah, shit.

***

“I could have beaten you,” Val-adra announced, for the second time.

Imani glanced sideways at her. Yep. Still soaked to the bone, her pale hair colorless against her lean throat. “Uh-huh.”

“I could have.”

"I get it."

Val-adra set her jaw, briefly. Something hard flashed behind her eyes. "I wouldn't have actually fought your friend," she said, stiffly. "I would have disarmed her and moved on."

Imani turned to stare at her.

The edge of the fountain was cutting into the backs of her thighs. And the stone was cold. The only saving grace was that she had fallen into the fountain second. Also, she had absolutely been about to win, no matter what Val-adra proclaimed.

The night watch was still snapping at both of them although Imani had stopped listening. Her friends must have dragged Ursa off before she could be arrested for public drunkenness. One of Val-adra’s crew was already counting out the coins to cover the entire offense of unsanctioned dueling. Once paid, the night watch left in a huff.

“I’m so sorry,” Val-adra’s friend said, cupping the noble’s cheek against her palm. Imani rolled her eyes. “For me, you ruined your perfect cloak!”

“Nothing is ruined, dear, as long as I still have your affection.” Val-adra kissed her friend’s hand.

Imani considered falling backwards into the fountain again.

The friend giggled, kissed Val-adra on both cheeks, and fled into the night with the others. Once again the only noise was the fountain.

“Why are you still here?” Val-adra asked, after a moment.

Imani looked up at the inky night sky. “I can hardly go back to the boarding house dripping wet.”

“Why not?”

“The proprietor would be miffed if I messed her floors.” Imani paused. “Why didn’t you leave with your ‘dear’ friends?”

Val-adra squirmed. She crossed her legs at the knee, then uncrossed them, then braced her hands on the fountain’s edge. “Are you going to admit that I would have won?”

Imani snorted.

“We could go again."

“I don’t think the night watch would let us go a second time for a fine.” She didn’t have the money to pay any of it, anyway. "Besides, aren't you satisfied? You pulled me into a fountain and your friends went home. None of them seemed terribly insulted."

Val-adra examined the flagstones. “I have a private practice yard.”

“What cause would I have to see your private practice yard?”

“Well,” she said. She hummed and hawed and looked at Imani from the corner of her dark eyes. “You can see it from my bedroom.”

Imani blinked. “Oh.”

Val-adra kept looking at her. Hopefully? Was that what that was?

Imani looked her up and down again. Huh.

***

When Imani woke up it was still night time. She must have only fallen asleep for an hour or so. Val-adra — Seraphina — was leaning against the doorway to her balcony. She had wrapped her peacock capelet (now dry, and definitely not 'ruined') around her shoulders against the chill, but was wearing nothing else.

"Where did you get that scar?" Imani asked. She had been wondering.

There was a pale stripe of raised skin along the back of Seraphina's calf. It was a strange place for a wound. Seraphina turned her head and her pale curls rippled over her shoulder. She looked surprised. "I fell out of a tree when I was nine."

"Uh." It was a long scar. Probably six or seven inches. Imani had traced it, briefly, before moving onto … other things.

"I fell out of the top of a tall tree. I also broke two ribs and my left arm," Seraphina said, almost proudly. It was hard to completely read her face in the starlight. "Didn't you get any silly injuries growing up? Surely you were a bit of a brawler."

"No." Imani shut her eyes. "I didn't really fight before I enlisted."

"Ah. Do you miss it?"

"I shouldn't."

"It can be such fun, though."

"Fighting is a tool. A sword is a tool."

Seraphina looked back out the window for a moment, sighed, then turned and leapt into the bed. She fell into the mattress as elegantly as she had darted around the courtyard. Her cloak fell back over her shoulders as she crept across the mattress. Imani swallowed, and she grinned. "Since you're awake again…"

Imani slid her hands over Seraphina's bare hips. "Aren't you going to show me your private practice yard?"

Seraphina snorted, and unclipped her cloak. It slid soundlessly off her back and onto the sheets. She bent forward and her body was warm against Imani's skin. It made it difficult to think clearly. She was lined with hard muscle, but her stomach and breasts were soft where they pressed against Imani's own. "That's what you want to look at right now?"

Imani inhaled and shut her eyes when Seraphina kissed her. Ursa, and the rest of the squad, were not going to hear about this part when she yelled at them again for fighting in public.

"Did you get lots of pretty girls when you were out defending the sovereignty, soldier?" Seraphina asked, pressing her face into Imani's throat.

Imani moved her leg between Seraphina's and rocked her thigh. Seraphina let out a content sigh. "No," Imani said, flipping her over. "All the pretty girls stayed home." That only made Seraphina sigh again. Imani bent and rolled her tongue over one of her nipples, and dipped her hand to play with Seraphina's clit.

Seraphina stretched both her arms above her head. Her fingers grazed the headboard. Imani grazed her teeth against her breast and Seraphina whimpered. In another minute Imani was straddling Seraphina's leg, rocking slowly against her thigh. One of Seraphina's hands curled around a post in the headboard. Her teeth caught against her lip when Imani slid two fingers into her and slid her thumb, hard, just to the side of her clit.

"I don't know," Seraphina said. Her breath was uneven. "I think you're fairly pretty, myself."

Imani rolled her eyes. That comment was absolutely not filtering down to Ursa and the others.

"What? Your eyes are so dark, and those freckles on your collarbone are just love - lovely - ah!"

"Do you ever stop talking?"

Seraphina laughed. It was a pleasant enough sound, Imani guessed, when she wasn't laughing at you. "Oh but I think my mouth was the thing you liked about me," she insisted, bucking her hips up to meet the next thrust of Imani's hand.

"I can think of better things for you to do with your mouth," Imani replied, dryly.

Seraphina grinned. Her grip on the headboard tightened and while Imani began to stroke her clit again, she stammered out, "D-Do tell!"

"You're impossible."

But just after the pressure became too much and Seraphina came, groaning softly, the woman had her hands on Imani's hips and had pulled her up to straddle her face. The strength in her arms was deceptive, Imani thought, briefly, before Seraphina's tongue dragged over her skin. Then she had to brace herself on the headboard.

"Not so impossible now?" Seraphina asked, just before turning her attention to Imani's clit. She was eager, and insistent, and just forceful enough to be sweetly painful.

Imani would have said something. She would have said something really witty, and impressive. But she was already wound up and Seraphina's tongue was taking all the words from her before she could even get her lips open. That's what she would say later, anyway.

She'd completely forgotten about getting to see the practice yard.


End file.
